Thursday, May 04, 2006

» IBM walks the SOA walk | Service-Oriented Architecture | ZDNet.com

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Blogger problems - I've moved!

Given the problems with the Atom API at Blogger over the last several days and the resultant inability to post via Performancing for FireFox as a result, I've move my blog to www.bigdadoo.com/blog. Yep, I'm pretty fickle when it comes to technology that's not working so I gave in to godaddy.com and got a domain name, then hosted a site on media temple courtesy of Method Media and switched to Wordpress all over the weekend. Just shows how important service levels can be.

Friday, March 31, 2006

The World is Flat - Video Lecture

I've had this video bookmarked for a long time, and I finally got around to watching it, and its great stuff. Since I have not read the book yet, I think I'll add it to my Amazon WishList in case anybody is interested :-). Mr. Friedman tells a great story about checking in to a South West Airlines flight and learning about printing your boarding pass from home. His comment was one I was familiar with in that by printing your own boarding pass, you are becoming an employee of South West Airlines, but then he surprised me by saying if you value your time (I do!) that you are paying South West to be their employee! Think about that!

Chances are good that Bhavya in Bangalore will read your next x-ray, or as Thomas Friedman learned first hand, “Grandma Betty in her bathrobe” will make your Jet Blue plane reservation from her Salt Lake City home. In “Globalization 3.0,” Friedman contends, people from far-flung places will become principal players in the marketplace.

Shack Wacky

On the esteemed CBC Information Radio with Terry McLeod this morning I heard a term that caught my attention. It's not anything I've ever heard before and not something I'd expect from the CBC, but then perhaps I'm just leading a sheltered life. Still, it had kind of a nice ring to it and the meaning seems to be fairly obvious, it's shack wacky. I'm assuming this is the latest version of the more widly accepted "cabin fever". The Urban Dictionary has it and perhaps it's going to move into more common use. It generally, seems to apply to mothers with small children at home, or those on a long sea voyage in a small cabin.

So, what can you do about being "shack wacky"? You could visit The Wacky Shack.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

My current blogging tool

After trying several blogging tools and programs, I think Performancing for Firefox will be the one for a while. Lots of great feature, free, and it posts to my IBM Internal blog as well. wBlogger was nice, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere and Rocket Post was just crashing all the time and more trouble that it was worth.

Performancing for Firefox is a full featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox. Just hit F8 or click the little pencil icon at the bottom right to bring up the blog editor and easily post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger blogs.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Find Music You'll Love - Pandora

Thanks to this Monday Morning Memo from Wizard Academy, I've hooked up with Pandora and I'm lovin' it. What a great concept. I'm enjoying some of the great tunes coming up from my custom radio station seeded with ELO and The Moody Blues. Top that off with the hookup with Slim Devices'Squeezebox and you've got a killer combination.

Can you help me discover more music that I'll like?Those questions often evolved into great conversations. Each friend told us their favorite artists and songs, explored the music we suggested, gave us feedback, and we in turn made new suggestions. Everybody started joking that we were now their personal DJs.We created Pandora so that we can have that same kind of conversation with you. Find Music You'll Love - Pandora

Sunday, March 26, 2006

The Juggler

After being insprired by the juggler Chris Bliss and the video of his amazing performance and then further astounded by the five ball performance of Jason, Eric is readying his seven ball perfomance for Vegas by practicing his skills in our kitchen.

Sorry Dez, if he's late picking you up, or you can't get him to do anything around the house any more, but an artist must hone his craft.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Microsoft Vista: Not People Ready

Talk about getting slammed in the press. You'd think by now everyone would be very used to Microsoft missing a product ship date by a year ot two. Since I'm a bit of an IBM fan, I especially liked this part.

No one mentioned the fact that in 1997, Microsoft held a similar event in New York City to declare that IBM's "big iron" was dead, because Windows NT--remember Windows NT?--was going to "scale up" and replace the mainframe. I wonder if Ballmer ever feels like the guy in Groundhog Day, reliving the same press conference, over and over. I know I do.: "Microsoft Vista: Not 'People Ready' - Forbes.com"

Oven-roasted Alligator

Wow, this is something else, almost enough to make you loose your appetite. But, I guess it’s not an endangered species, and if it’s up to my dinning habits, there will be no problem with the alligators. Explorers Club Annual Dinner